Welcome to my
Bob Dylan™ Musical Roots
and Influences Blog
(a previous incarnation was bobdylanroots.com)
of Manfred Helfert, Mainz, Germany.
Any copyrighted items are included here for "nonprofit educational purposes" (one of the criteria of "fair use", Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107). Most audio recordings linked to (but not hosted) in this blog are believed to be either uncopyrighted or to have lapsed into Public Domain in the EU where this blog originates.

Mittwoch, 25. April 2012

Due to the recent seizure of megaupload.com by the FBI, most of my (legal) files (under EU law where this blog originates and in accordance with the Copyright Act
of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107) are no longer accessible.

I feel that the U.S. Government/the FBI is TOTALLY
ABUSING its powers by negating CITIZENS OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES the right
to use a LEGAL SERVICE THEY HAVE PAID FOR!!!!

I have heard that EF (Electronic Frontier
Foundation) is helping to get U.S. users to get their legally stored
Megaupload files back (if they're still on the servers) -- but what
about international users?

Is there any way to sue the FBI for not allowing me to use a (legal) service I have paid for, with hard-earned money?

Freitag, 25. November 2011

Recently, I came across two CDs of amateur recordings from the July 29, 1961 "Saturday of Folk Music", broadcast on WRVR, New York, NY.

Whoever had the foresight to record this for posterity, did it with amateur equipment off the air -- there is a fair amount of interference and the reel-to-reel recording was stopped, whenever the taper seemed not to be interested in an artist. Upon restarting, the beginning of songs are cut frequently, as the taper did not manage to push the button on time -- so, quite a few songs are fragments only.Moreover, this is from a tape labeled "Part 2" -- other tapes have not been located so far, although they might exist, based on the following clue from my detective bag:-- The performance of a yet unsigned Bob Dylan from that date (featuring Danny Kalb and Ramblin' Jack Elliott) is NOT part of the tape labeled "Part 2" (as Dylan's performance is in circulation for quite a long time, there could be other tapes including his performance and that of others somewhere).

I have no idea, unfortunately, about the sequence of performers during this 12-hour marathon, but have included (unsigned) Bob Dylan's performance for the sake of (temporary) completeness.

Kick back, relax, and enjoy a certainly less-than-perfect historical audio document of an event half a century ago, where Suze Rotolo started flirting with Bob Dylan and where Bob might have first met Len Kunstadt and Victoria Spivey, leading to his recording session with Victoria and Big Joe Williams....

FOLK MUSIC HEARD ON 12-HOUR SHOWWRVR-FM Program Marks Start of 'Live' Project

A marathon program of folk music was run on Saturday to initiate the live music project of the city's newest FM radio outlet. Aside from a few pauses to identify station WRVR, the sound of ballads, blues, banjos and bouzoukis was heard from 9 A. M. to 9 P. M.

From noon on, the "festival" was held in the theatre of Riverside Church before a vociferously appreciative audience. The co-producers, Israel G. Young and Bob Yellin, rounded up more than fifty volunteer performers, of whom only a handful fell below a general high level of competence. No one was paid for his efforts, but the success of the program may serve to remind commercial radio and television stations that there is a largely untapped reservoir of zealous city folk musicians ready, willing and able to perform.

Although there were enough lapsv [SIC] of broadcasting practices during the day to gray a studio official's hair, the musical proceedings moved along with pace and variety and relatively few arid patches.

Commentary by Kunstadt

The segment on the blues, probably the day's best portion, was given shape by the commentary of Len Kunstadt, a jazz historian with a flair for aphorism and enthusiasm.

He introduced a series of singers—Bob Fox, Bruce Langhorne, Dave Van Ronk, the Rev. Gary Davis and Victoria Spivey —who touched on every aspect of the genre — traditional and commercial, sacred and profane, sad and even happy blues. Miss Spivey, whose recording career began in 1926, had as her accompanist on "St. Louis Blues" W, C. Handy Jr., son of the song's composer.
An exotic interlude of music from the Middle East was provided by local Greek and Turkish performers organized by J. R. Goddard and introduced by Cynthia Gooding in a section on foreign music. The Turkish songs of Saliha Tekneci were sinuous and haunting. The oud-playing of George Mgrdichian was dancingly rhythmic and tonally beautiful. And a taxim, a free improvisation on the bouzouki by Thomas Athanasiou, was inventive and pulsing.

The more-familiar banjo had its moments, too. Paul Cadwell is an old-school florid technician with a bag of virtuoso tricks, and John Cohen demonstrated traditional country styles. The flashy pyrotechnics of Scruggs-picking were offered by Roger Sprung, Marshall Brickman and Mr. Yellin.

Sandy Bull Performs

But it fell to a young music-J theory student, Sandy Bull, to really plumb the depths of creativity on the "primitive" folk instrument. Mr. Bull is equally at home in Southern mountain and blues styles, but his tonal richness, technical mastery and imagination excelled in his own explorative banjo transcriptions of a canon by William Byrd and Orff's"Carmina Burana," no less.

It would be impossible to list every high point during the day, but some old friends did
have their innings. Among them were Logan English's tart topical song on the Washington Square ruckus and John Herald's alfalfa-flavored sacred, song, "We Need a Whole Lot, More of Jesus and a Lot Less Rock 'n' Roll."

The personable stage manner of Molly Scott, the hand-clapping gospel rousers of Brother John Sellers and Herman Stevens, and the antics of Rambling Jack Elliott were other pleasing moments.

There were few big-name performers to give glamour to the proceedings, but the talent
and exuberance of so many dedicated musicians made the day one to remember.

Freitag, 4. November 2011

Paxton: One night in Greenwich Village, there's a — there used to be a club called Gerde's Folk City. So, one night, Dave Van Ronk and I — apparently, we had already done our three songs apiece. And we were sitting there drinking beer, and this scruffy kid in a black corduroy cap — what they called a Huck Finn cap — and a, and a harmonica rack and a — I think a Gibson guitar got up and sang three Woody Guthrie songs. And both Dave and I, who were not easy, said, "Yeah, not bad. Ooh, this guy's all right." So, in next to no time, Bob Dylan was the most talked about, argued about artist in the Village. I mean, they were accusing him of being a Woody Guthrie clone, which was nonsense. He didn't sound like Woody Guthrie. Jack Elliott, in his early days, sounded much more like Woody than Bob ever did. But Bob had a tremendous repertoire of Woody Guthrie songs. He knew Woody Guthrie songs no one else knew. And perhaps Woody didn't write 'em. Perhaps Bob did, but who knows?

Paulson: Turned out to be a pretty fair writer. Do you recall your reaction to Dylan's first compositions?

Paxton: Oh, yeah. I liked his writing right from the beginning. And I have to tell you about one night. The Gaslight Cafe, where most of us worked, was on MacDougal Street. And it was down about eight steps. It was a cellar. It was a coffee house, no booze. And I — it was not a large place at all. Upstairs, on the first floor, in the back, there was a, a little apartment that the Gaslight rented or owned or something, just kind of a storage room. And we set up a table in there. We had this penny-ante poker game that was continuous. And my roommate at the time was a guy named Hugh Romney, who became, later, widely known in — as Wavy Gravy. And he was a poet, a beat poet. And he had this portable typewriter, or what we would call now a laptop typewriter, that he had left in this room for general use. And so, one night, I came in early for work, and Bob was in there tap, tap, tapping and had just finished this long poem. And he said, "What do you think of this?" So, I looked at this thing, and I said, "Well, this, you know, wild imagery, you know, what are you going to do with it?" And he said, "Well, I, I, I — ." I said, "Are you gonna, you know, put music to it?" He said, "What? You think I should?" I says, "Yeah, I mean, 'cause otherwise it's just something to go in some literary quarterly or something, but this way, you know, you'll have a song out of it." So, the next night — Bob never worked at the Gaslight, but he was there a lot and would get up late at night and, and do a set. And he got up, and he sang this new song called "It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." And nowadays, when I hear him sing it, and it gets into, like, what seems like the 20th minute, I think, "Did I make the right decision in advising this?" No, I'm just kidding. It's a great, a great song. It's a —

To my astonishment, I found an identically titled song
by Steve Gillette and Rex Benson:

Here, in the heart of the nation.
I'm just a man whose made a promise he can't keep
I've been workin' every sunrise,
But it's too late, I'm in too deep.

This farm is my home it's my birthright
It's the only life I know.
I've worked this land with all the love in these hands
And I can't just let it go.

But in the heartland,
There's a man who holds the paper on my soul.
There's a circumstance that's out of my control.
And the thunder and the winds begin to roll.

In the heartland,
In the light before the darkness falls.
Revelations in those marbled halls,
Where they've traded away my home,
Where they've taken away my home.

What does it profit a man,
To gain the world and lose the seed?
To see the innocent land
Become the servant of their greed.

And I know I'm not alone,
There's a woman who knew me when my prayers were younger.
And children, ashamed of their hunger.
And others, family farmers like my own,
Up late tonight in the heartland.

And in the heartland,
There's a man who holds the paper on my soul.
There's a circumstance that's out of my control
And the thunder and the winds begin to roll.
In the heartland,
In the light before the darkness falls.
Recriminations in those distant halls
Where they've traded away our home,
Where they've taken away our home.

Back in 1997, I wrote:
"Somehow, I found the similarities (topic and lyrics) to the identically named Bob Dylan/Willie Nelson song to be rather striking -- mere coincidence? Somehow, I doubt it....

To be fair, however, didn't Bob himself start the whole thing with "Ballad of Hollis Brown" back in the 1960s?

Or Woody Guthrie in "Tom Joad", his rendering of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath"... Or, for that matter, the anonymous authors lamenting the plight of peasants in medieval England?"

Yesterday, I received an email from Steve Gillette who confirmed that at least Willie Nelson knew Steve's and Rex's song prior to his collaboration with Bob Dylan:

"Rex and I were very gratified by your willingness to make that statement. It seemed to us that you were very perceptive, and also willing to point out that the emperor's new cloths might not be what they seem. Forgive the clumsy use of the old expression, but I was glad to have the article which I believe you wrote in 1997.

When Rex and I wrote the song it seemed a natural fit with the Farm Aid concerts and we sent the song to Willie by way of his managers, his harmonica player, Micky Rafael who is an acquaintance, we even left a copy for him at his golf course, so we know he had ample opportunity to hear our song."
Steve added in a second email today:

"I do have great respect for Willie Nelson and for Bob Dylan and wouldn't want to say anything hurtful or that might be interpreted as a cheap shot, but what I said about their having access to our song is true. And, honestly, I don't think one could write their song without having heard ours, but it wouldn't be the first time that I heard the echoes of my own words without knowing the full story."

But before Bob Dylan became a musical star, he was one of countless young musicians in New York City trying to get heard. Some of his earliest radio appearances were on Pacifica radio station WBAI.

We speak with the legendary WBAI broadcasterBob Fass, the host of Radio Unnameable, who interviewed Dylan several times. Fass’s show began in 1963 and became a leading outlet for the emerging counterculture of the 1960s. It still airs every Thursday night at midnight. We play excerpts from the Pacifica Radio Archives of a 1962 performance by Dylan on Fass’s show and an interview when he was only 20 years old.